None of this is to say there has been a giant, organised conspiracy to undermine Britain in this way. Admittedly, some Left-wingers did so conspire, but many others bought into these ideas for different reasons.

Of particular importance was the demoralisation of the British ruling class by the loss of Empire and the indebtedness of Britain to America at the end of World War II – a profound loss of cultural nerve that made the Establishment vulnerable to any ideas, however outlandish, that promised to bring about the New Jerusalem.

These ideas gained general traction within the intelligentsia, the universities and the media – which is why the BBC is so institutionally skewed towards political correctness.

However, the terrifying fact is that they form a totalitarian mindset that replicates the way communist societies clamped down on any other than permitted views. Thus the intolerance – or even arrest – of Christians opposed to gay adoption and civil union, or the vilification as ‘racists’ of those opposed to mass immigration.